Other Lives
by MissForsythe
Summary: One day, Nathan has a freak accident and gets sent back to 1963. Set about a year post-finale. Chapter 5 added.
1. Sarah

Title: Other Lives  
>Author: MissForsythe<br>Rating: I don't know yet, I might add some rated stuff in later chapters. There's smoking, does that count?  
>Summary: In a freak accident, Nathan is sent back to the early sixties and then to the early 80's. He meets Sarah and Lucy, and eventually, these meetings will lead him back to Audrey and how he's supposed to bring her home.<br>Disclaimer: Not mine, duh.  
>Pairing: VinceSarah, for now, might be Nathan/Audrey later.

**Author's Notes:**

_So, Sarah. I really do think she and Vince were close, perhaps engaged or about to be engaged, but she left before anything came of it. I also think she and Dave probably did not get along and it created a lot of friction between them. Kind of opposite of what Audrey does with Nathan and Duke in the present._

_The story is set about a year post finale, where Nathan mainly spends his time searching for clues about what happened to Audrey._

Part 1: Sarah

One day, while chasing a suspect, Nathan gets hit on the head and passes out.

When he wakes up, he's in Haven, but everything is different. The cars, the people and the clothes they wear. He's laying on the side of the road, and his mouth tastes like dirt and filth. There's a man standing over him, and there's something familiar about that look in his eyes. The world won't stop spinning long enough for the memory to come back, but then he's being picked up and carried away.

The first thing he sees when he wakes the second time is the grey walls and the sound of a typewriter in the distance. There's noise and then a figure in a blue uniform appears. The cop is young and looks kind of frightened. He checks his reflection as the cop leads him towards an interrogation room, and when he sees his hair sticking out in every direction paired with the hungover look he's sporting, he understands why. He's forcefully sat down on a plastic chair and the young cop slams the door with a little too much vigour.

He knows that he isn't drunk, an hour ago he'd been chasing down a lead on Audrey and then he'd woken up here. Wherever here was.  
>Another cop comes in, looking at him with a mix of disgust and curiosity on his face.<p>

"Looks like you've been bailed, son", the cop tells him sternly. He pulls him up to stand and drags him down to the front desk, where the man from earlier was waiting. Still confused, Nathan looks at him, trying to find a reference point as to where he's seen this man before. The man doesn't say anything, but motions for him to follow.

The drive is silent, and it's only when they approach the mans house, Nathan realises that he's sitting next to a younger version of Vince Teagues. There's a figure sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigarette and reading a book. Then, the emotions start washing over him as he realises that it's Audrey sitting there, but not really Audrey. His head hurts too much to figure out the logic of it all.

She gives him a somewhat icy stare, mixed with curiosity and something else that he remembers so well.

"Mr, eh..."

Vince seems kind of flustered that it took him so long to ask for his name, it makes Nathan laugh.

"Wournos"

The woman who is not Audrey laughs and asks him if he's related to Calvin Wournos. It feels like someone just made him taste a lemon, even though he only met his supposed grandfather once. He vaguely remembers an eerily quiet house and a parrot that frightened him, but most of all, he remembers his father wincing for the first and last time ever.

He tells her that he's a distant cousin, just passing through. She doesn't believe him, he can tell, but she schrugs and stands up. Vince puts his arms around her, in that tender manner that he and Audrey never got to do.

"This is my fiancee, Sarah Ivers."

The world stops moving for a minute or while he processes the information. Before Lucy, there was a Sarah, she told him. The latest, the last piece to the infinite puzzle that represented the Troubles. He's only seen a vague picture, but this woman standing before him is everything but vague. She's reading him, and he gets the feeling that within these past few minutes, she knows him better then he knows himself. Vince kisses her temple and asks her to go inside and tell Dave that they have a guest. Clearly not pleased with this request, she huffs and walks into the house.

"She's feisty", Vince announces, almost apologetically as he leads him into the house. He's surprised that the Teagues house looks exactly the same in whatever year this is then it does in 2011. There's the grandfather clock in the hallway and the ruddy carpets and black and white tiles in the kitchen. Sara is walking around in there, talking to someone he can't see, but he assumes it's Dave. He can overhear that they're discussing something and not agreeing, but Vince is already whisking him away.

The guest room is ugly, but it would do, according to Vince. All Nathan knows is that he's feeling tired and he's asleep before his head hits the pillow. Sleep only seems to last a few minutes, because when he wakes, she's leaning in the doorway, staring at him. He still can't get over that look in her eyes, as though she really doesn't appear to trust him. She informs him that dinner is ready and then disappears again. Downstairs, he can hear voices, one being Vince and the other he doesn't recognise. He spies on them from the landing, until Sara intervenes and tells the stranger that he should leave. Something about the tone makes his stomach clench, and he doesn't know why.


	2. Someone Like You

Title: Other Lives  
>Author: MissForsythe<br>Rating: I don't know yet, I might add some rated stuff in later chapters. There's smoking, does that count?  
>Summary: In a freak accident, Nathan is sent back to the early sixties and then to the early 80's. He meets Sarah and Lucy, and eventually, these meetings will lead him back to Audrey and how he's supposed to bring her home.<br>Disclaimer: Not mine, duh.  
>Pairing: VinceSarah, for now, might be Nathan/Audrey later. 

Part 2: Someone Like You

_Audrey comes to him in dreams. Sometimes he'll chase after her in a crowd, and she'll vanish right when he gets closer. Sometimes, she comes to him at some god forsaken hour of the night. He can feel her, really feel her, as she climbs in next to him. __She's naked and wanting and needing and just when she's about to shatter, he wakes up to the darkness._

Dinner at the Teagues House is somewhat of an event, and Nathan thinks that there's a strange atmosphere in the air. The calendar says that it's 1963, that Kennedy is still alive and that Sarah apparently works at the Haven Regional Bank as a teller. He can't stop looking at her.

„So what do you think?"

Nathan looks up from his plate, seeing the younger version of Dave Teagues looking at him from the head of the table. He sips his wine, weighing his words about how people will be flying to the moon in the 21st century. He mumbles something about the technology and how they'll need to refine it before anyone can live on the moon.

He scrapes his throat, carefully prying about the man in the hallway from earlier.

As it turns out, he missed a meeting with Duke's grandfather, Ike Crocker, a real piece of work, they tell him. Always in trouble, hardly ever sober. Sarah mentions something about a poor kid, and the thought that she's referring to Simon jolts him. He can vaguely recall that Simon came over to their house when he was little, and he and the Chief always had hushed conversations behind closed doors. If he really tries, there's always a womans voice as well. Her voice.

Sarah brings out dessert, some sort of concoction with pineapple and lime. It tastes like lemon pie, but with a drier crust. It takes a while for his tastebuds to adjust. She's eyeing him, not in that insulted way, but curious.

Later, he finds her sitting on the porch swing, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. She's staring into space, and doesn't notice him until he sits down next to her.

"_What's her name?"_

"_Who?"_

"_The girl I remind you of."_

She giggles and tells him she's noticed the way he looks at her. And just like that, he tells her everything. About Audrey and pancakes and how he doesn't know where she is. He hasn't really talked about it to anyone in the past year. The county made him see a counselor for a while, but he stopped going after the mandated five times. Sometimes when they're drunk, he and Duke talk about her, about the missing piece in their soul. They hadn't done that recently, and he'd gotten the impression that Duke was starting to forget.

She points her finger at the starry night above them, and says something about how stars are consistently seeing everything at once. Somewhere out there, Audrey would be watching them . Then she tells him that tomorrow, they'll go to the Herald office and post a missing persons notice.

She gets so excited over the prospect that he can't really tell her that she won't find anything other then herself staring back, and then she'll be so confused that he'll never have moments like this with her again. And even though he's only known this version for less then a day, he's pretty sure that he's not ready to give that up just yet.

Later, when he's laying under the scratchy sheets in the guest bedroom, he can hear Sarah and Vince talking in the other room.

"…_no other way."_

"_No, there has to be, Vince, if we just think it through enough."_

"_He has to die, you know that, it is foretold."_

Nathan turns on his side and stares at a painting of what looks like Haven, but isn't until sleep overcomes him.

In his dream, she comes to him, wearing a white nightgown and nothing else. He takes her against the wall and this time, right before that glorious release, she speaks.

„_I see you, Nathan"_

When he wakes, he could swear there's a fading scent of perfume and cigarettes in the air.


	3. Sunday

Title: Sunday

Author: MissForsythe

Disclaimer: not mine

Summary: In a freak accident, Nathan is sent back to 1963, he meets Sarah and hopefully she'll provide an answer as to how to bring Audrey home.

Reviews: Reviews make my day.

**Part 3: Sunday**

Nathan is awoken a second time by very loud churchbells outside the window. Perhaps it's because he's been living on the outskirts of town, but he doesn't remember them ever being this loud. He can hear a flurry of noises downstairs, including Dave Teagues' very annoyed voice about having to wear a tie. He can hear heels clicking outside his room, as though she's hesitating to come in. When he opens the door, the first thing he notices is how incredibly blue her eyes are. How familiar they are.

She mumbles something about being late for church before disappearing down the stairs.

He watches her walk away for two seconds before he runs back into the guest room, to put on the suit that's been hanging on the closet door. It's a bit big on him, but it would do for church. Suddenly, he remembers that conversation that they had about Sunday Mass once.

„_But then I wouldn't be able to sleep in"_

„_You never sleep in. You're physically incapable of it"_

"_Well, even if I wanted to go to church on Sundays, which I don't because of all the not sleeping in, I'd have all these childhood memories of long preaches and Billy Knowles smacking gum and trying to put it in someones hair"_

He'd laughed so hard he had to pull over on the side of the road until he was calm enough to continue. Even now, the memory makes him smile.

xxxx

The Good Shepherd Church is even more frightening in 1963 then it is in 2011. It's much darker and much colder, and the cold stare of the man up front doesn't help. The Rev isn't the spitting image of his father, but close enough for Nathan to recognise him in the front pew. A pale teenager, with a dour look, either of boredom or lack of sleep. He hears Sarah whisper something to Vince, and the look he gives her makes his gut wrench in envy. She giggles and rests her head on his shoulder.

As they leave, Sarah and Vince light a candle, her small hand on top of his. He looks away, feeling strangely pained by the sight.

Xxxxx

Afterwards, they head over to the Herald office, where the brand new type writer is treated with the utmost care and respect. Sarah chatters about a stenography course in Bangor that she wants to take next fall. He hasn't really said anything since they left the church, his head swarming with images of Audrey in a white dress and lighting a candle and her small hand on top of his.

„You're awfully quiet, the Rev make that much of an impression?"

He sits down in the easy chair in the corner, thinking of what to do or ask next.

Dave, clearly not in the mood to be here right now, asks him if they please can get on with it, and Vince snits something back that he doesn't understand. After Dave leaves and Vince chases after him, the atmosphere in the room changes. Sarah watches them until they disappear around the corner, and then turns back to him. Something about the way the light falls in behind her back gives her something almost angelic.

Next, she's asking him for a picture of his sweetheart, and he sheepishly admits that he doesn't have one. She doesn't believe him, he can tell, but she schrugs and gets out a notepad. She asks him non descriptive questions, until they get to part where he saw her last.

"_I'll see you tomorrow night?"_

"_Yes, pancakes, right?"_

"_Right"_

After that, they'd been too busy with booking the Rev's followers and doing the paperwork for Kyle Hopkins to really get into the subject again.

He knows that she wore heels, because he'd found one of them on the carpet when he first came in.

Thinking of Audrey maybe someday coming across this article, he conjures up an image of a green wrap around dress and high heels and her hair put up in a loose bun. Sarah writes down everything he tells her, including the part where he was late because the Bronco wouldn't start and several tries to put the key into the ignition.

"That special, huh?"

He nods, and watches her walk over to the typewriter.

He carefully inquires about the wedding, and for some reason, she's not that willing to talk about it. She mumbles something about a dress, but nothing more. Much to his surprise, she's much more interested in everything that comes after. She and Vince are planning to move to Boston, grand plans that involve city life and bigger things then Haven and covering small town politics and charity picnics.

When she's typed out the story, she hands him the sheet so he can add corrections, but what he reads is pretty coherent. In time, perhaps he could persuade Dave to show Audrey the article, so she'll know. There's a bright flash and the click of heels on the tile floor.

She attaches the polaroid to the paper and leaves on the desk where everything is marked „DAVE" with big black letters.

She suggests heading over to Laverne's, where Vince is probably balking over the fight with his brother, and for a late lunch. He helps her put on her coat, and when she puts her arm through the sleeve, his hand brushes the bare skin of her shoulder. The sensation almost makes him shiver. It's only because the doorbell clangs loudly that he doesn't lay his palm fully on her upper arm.

He doesn't recognise the woman that just stormed in, but he can tell that she's pissed over something. Outside, the sunny weather suddenly turns dark and stormy and heavy rain beats against the window. Sarah takes the woman into a back room, and he can hear faint arguing about keeping something under control and the womans husband being untrustworthy.

He watches the rain dissipate as the voices grow calmer, and he thinks that some things do not ever change, no matter how messed up things get.

Then he sees the lonely figure across the street, soaked to the bone, observing the office. Or more likely, observing him. He'd know those blue eyes anywhere, even though this set is younger and less weary. He nods at the man who will one day trade his rookie uniform for a more official one, and to his surprise, Garland Wournos nods back.


	4. Secrets

Title: Secrets

Author: MissForsythe

Disclaimer: not mine

Summary: In a freak accident, Nathan is sent back to 1963, he meets Sarah and hopefully she'll provide an answer as to how to bring Audrey home.

Reviews: Reviews make my day.

Laverne's is a cosy little diner, right from a movie, on the corner of Derry Road. Vince and Dave are already waiting for them, a large piece of pecan pie between them. Sarah slides into the booth, and kisses Vince full on the lips, and he can hear someone tutting disapprovingly at the sight. She tells Vince about the report, and how she wants a dark green dress.

Nathan's mind is still stuck on seeing a younger version of his father, with the rain dripping from his dark brown hair. There's a still a sharp stab of betrayal, of regret everytime he remembers that day on the beach.

„_So you met our Garland then"_

He looks up at Dave Teagues, regarding him with curiosity and something that Nathan can not clearly define. He's forgotten that he's supposed to be related to this man, and that he hasn't thought about the exact bond they should have. All of the sudden, the ridiculousness of the situation hits him. Here he is, in 1963. With a woman who is and who is not Audrey. With eyes and faces that he vaguely recognises from old photographs. And his father, who is not his father, but whom he shares a name with, a job, an interest, a mission. He starts laughing so hard that he nearly knocks Sarah's coffee into her lap, and everyone is looking at him like they would a deranged robber.

He hasn't noticed that there's been an uproar just outside the door, and that the focus has shifted to this new event. The man that Sarah kicked out last night is now trying to enter the diner, but is being held back by a small boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. Even though he's a few feet away, Nathan can smell the acidity of alcohol and cigarettes.

Like his son and grandson, Ike Crocker is a force to be reckoned with. He gives the boy a hard shove, landing him on the pavement, and comes barrelling in. He stands in the middle of the diner, looking for someone until his focus lands on their booth. As he limps towards them, Sarah shifts in her seat, closer to him. For just a second, he can smell perfume. Before the sensation fully reaches his brain, he sees something shiny being thrown on the table. When he looks closer, he can see it's a small gun, embedded with green stones on the handle.

"_There, someone left this for ya."_

Sarah just stares at the gun, unsure what she's supposed to do with it. She picks it up, weighs it in her palm and checks the chamber for bullets. Nathan is by now pretty convinced that all oxygen has left the room. Before he can reach out to her, Vince has already taken it from her, and carefully put it away in his coat pocket.

Ike is still standing there, as if waiting for her to use it.

"_She was a good girl, our Anna, back in the day. Did what she had to do, didn't mess stuff up. Not a whore like you."_

Before he can even start processing the information, Dave has already shot out of his seat and landed a good hard punch. It takes a lot of strength to not just join him. Vince just stands there, shell shocked. Meanwhile, Ike Crocker lays on the tiled floor with his bloody nose, looking somewhere between amused and gleeting. He scrambles to his feet, wipes his nose and regards Nathan for a moment. After one last look at Dave, he shuffles to the door where a police car has appeared. Ike doesn't protest anything, he just gets in the car. He doesn't give the teenage boy even a second look.

Later, in the car back to the house, nobody talks. Sarah picks at the hem of her dress, Dave drives and Vince stares out the passenger side window.

After dinner, Vince announces that he has some editing to do at the office and that he won't be back until later. He kisses the top of Sarah's head, and for a second, she flinches. Audrey used to do that if she was uncomfortable with something. A barely there flinch. And somewhere deep inside, the first pieces of the puzzle come together. As they sit in silence, he tries to think of ways to properly adressing the situation.

„_Would you have done it?"_

She looks up from her book, contemplates for a moment before nodding her head. It scares him how easy he accepts that answer. The rain is pounding on the window outside, the tv crackles in the corner and Lucille Ball is doing a skit with eggs and dancing.

Audrey comes to him that night, when he's fallen asleep in the easy chair. She straddles his lap and places kisses down his neck. His fingers trace the line of her lower back, and all he wants to do is carry her up the stairs to the guest room and devour her. Instead, he holds her still and asks her questions.

„_Do you know why Ike Crocker has to die?"_

„_Who said anything about has to?"_

He looks up at her, the ends of her hair tickling his neck.

„_Maybe they've got it wrong, Nathan. Maybe they've had it wrong all this time."_

The clock in the hall chimes, and she vanishes from his arms.

It's midnight, and Sarah has probably gone to bed, judging by the forgotten novel on the armrest of the couch and the empty tea mug. As he softly walks up the stairs, he can see that the patio light is still on. From the window, he can see Dave and Sarah standing against the far wall. Her fingers trace the bruised knuckles, and then he's kissing her. Kissing her fiercely.

„_Not a whore like you."_

He stands there, strangely fascinated by the sight. Their kissing is deep and passionate, something that he didn't see when she was kissing Vince at the diner. Perhaps because Vince doesn't respond to her kisses in an equal measure. He watches as she takes his hand and they come inside. He listens as they come up the stairs and enter the bedroom at the end of the hall.

Audrey sits on his bed, her knees pulled up to her naked body. He can see her spine, equal pebbles tracing a straight line up her body. He pulls her against him, her body no longer tense or hidden.

Then he notices something else, that her hair is longer, darker, and that she doesn't recognise him.

"_Audrey, please stay. Here with me."_

She cocks her head in a shy smile and as she looks up at him.

"_Who's Audrey?"_

He doesn't recognise her voice or that look in her eyes.

She turns around the face him, and studies him for a good long while until he realises that this is not Audrey. This is not Sarah, this is someone else entirely. Darker, more dangerous.

"_She was a good girl, our Anna."_

She laughs and vanishes, and all that is left is silence and the feel of sweat on his forehead.

The front door opens and closes downstairs, and he knows that Sarah has long left Daves bed, that Audrey didn't come to him tonight, and that tomorrow, there will be another secret living in this house.

And that Ike Crocker will die.


	5. Storm

Title: Storm  
>Author: MissForsythe<br>Rating: T  
>Summary: In a freak accident, Nathan is sent back to the early sixties. He'll have to rely on Sarah to change the course of events and eventually save Audrey.<p>

Disclaimer: Not mine, duh.  
>Pairing: VinceSarah, for now, might be Nathan/Audrey later.

Around 7 am, the wind is still howling outside the window. Something is clattering against the glass, and the sleepless night becomes a sleepless early morning. After she'd gone, he never thought his life could get more complicated then it is now. The past twelve months had been a juggling act of keeping The Troubles at bay, following leads after he and Duke had published a missing persons report. He'd never thought much about small towns other then Haven, but he'd found that they existed everywhere, all of them keeping secrets and glaring looks. He hadn't found her in any of them.

He can hear someone getting up in the other room, and hushed conversation about breakfast and who is doing groceries after work. As he leans back into the pillow, he overthinks his next step. There's a reason he's here, there's something he's supposed to be doing. Contemplating the notion of spilling the beans to the Teagues brothers, about Sarah being in their lives for a reason. About a woman he loved, and then lost and how he'll be able to prevent it from happening forty years down the line.

Breakfast is rushed, Sarah is looking around for her earrings (Nathan can't help but think that one of the pair is probably lost in Dave's bed) and her shoes and her purse, and it makes him smile. She's just about not hopping around. When she's gone, Vince offers him a copy of The Herald, and he sees his own confused face staring back at him. This is not, however, what he should be paying attention to. Under the headline, it says _"by Sarah Ivers"_ in italics. Vince is beyond excited about it, while Dave just rolls his eyes. It's not bad, Nathan has to admit. She's got a nice way of writing. Everything is told as he dictated it, even if most of it is a lie.

"_Who's Anna?"_

The question makes everything come to a screeching halt. Dave hold his coffee cup mid air, staring at him dumb foundedly. Then they exchange looks, dithering on whether or they want to share the information. Dave gets up, and despite his brothers protests, he gets out a bound bundle. The paper is worn, but he can clearly discern the Herald logo on the first sheet.

Dave, in a tone that more icy then angry, asks if he knows that Sarah is special. He glares at his brother as he says the words. Vince huffs, clearly not pleased with the turn this conversation is taking.

"_Anna was…a helper, a guardian. She never knew because that idiot of a Reverend and his clan convinced her otherwise."_

Quickly leafing through the papers, he digs out a picture of the woman, with dark blonde hair and icy blue eyes. Nathan bites back a gasp, because he sees nothing in them. She's standing in front of a farmhouse, her hand on the shoulder of a small boy. There's something about the way they're posed, that makes Nathan wonder why the lens didn't break. He's never seen two people less eager to be photographed, and that includes most of his own childhood pictures. He looks closer and he sees something on her arm. Blue streaks, four of them. Vaguely, he recognises fingers, and he knows that there's a fifth one on the inside of her wrist.

"_That's little Ike Crocker, way back when."_ Dave gestures at the little boy.

„No one knew where she came from, how she got here, but all of the sudden, his old man was trotting her around like she was some prize he won at a fair. She may as well have been."

Vince sits down at the other end of the table, knowing that he can not win this fight.

"_Ike's mom died in childbirth. Such tragedy."_

Dave glares at his brother again, obviously not agreeing.

„_Tragedy for her son, yes. Being stuck with a such miserable drunken git like Abe. __They should have taken him away, you know. Far from Haven, perhaps then we wouldn't be in this goddamn mess every time."_

As he sips his coffee, Vince continues:

"Anna was the closest thing to a mother he ever knew. Even if she and Abe were always having it out over his drinking."

Nathan looks at the picture, and he can tell that brown eyes and dark hair definitely run in the Crocker family. The boy is identical to six year old Duke Crocker, except his clothes are shabbier and his eyes are empty.

"_Did he abuse them?"_

Dave makes a strange noise into his coffee cup, and for some reason, both brothers find this question very amusing.

"_They were…rough, yes. You'd have to be, living in that remote area. But if she was anything like our Sarah is now, Abe would have died long before he could even lay a hand on her. I know he taught her how to shoot guns, never knew his own strength, another endearing trait in that family."_

They'd been young boys then, and they'd often go up to forest near the farmhouse to try out their bb guns and play cowboys and indians near the edge of the trees. They'd spied on Anna and Abe fighting on the front lawn often, their harsh words resounding far and wide.

„_Why were they unhappy?"_

He points out the looks on their faces, the fingers on her arm, and the the faint blue shade around her left eye. Vince, in an attempt to duck giving an answer, starts busying himself with clearing the breakfast table.

„_It wasn't our business, back then."_

When he's gone into the kitchen, Dave leans into him, and tells him in a hushed tone that as small boys, they couldn't help her. But as grown men, they'll go to the ends of the earth to keep her here as long as necessary. Until she understands what her task is.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Nathan spends the afternoon going through the papers. He finds reports of people who reportedly set fires with their psyches, people whose tears had lethal powers. He finds a report about a child claiming she could make fairy tales come to life. There is very little written about Anna, beyond the picture and a small article about how she saved a horse from a fire.

He looks at the picture again, and then it hits him that he knows where that farmhouse is located. Duke never mentioned anything about it, even though they'd gone there several times when they were in high school. It was in a remote area called Snow Ridge, and according to town lore, it was haunted. He only remembers that it was musty and that most of the left behind Furniture had been covered with cobwebs.

After much pleading, Vince agrees to let them use the car to drive up there, though not fully on board with the idea. Nathan has momentarily forgotten that in 1963, the house was probably not abandoned yet, and that Ike Crocker was still living there.

While driving through Main Street, they pass the bank where Sarah works, and the epiphany hits him like a bag of bricks. He almost pulls the steering wheel to get Dave to pull over. The screech of the tires makes several people look at them like they're about to rob the place.

Sarah isn't even surprised when they walk in, she just grabs her coat and purse and asks where they're going.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

The drive up to Snow Ridge is more difficult then Dave originally calculated. The wind is still blowing a gale, and dark clouds are gathering above the trees. The farmhouse is indeed not yet abandoned. It looks exactly the same as in the photograph, except more weathered.

The door is opened by who Nathan presumes is teenage Simon Crocker. He glares at them, quite unsure what to do next. He looks down at his dirty t shirt and mumbles when he lets them in. The house itself is dark and dusty, and Nathan gets a creeping sensation that they really should not outstay their welcome. Simon runs up the stairs, followed by screaming and heavy footsteps over their heads.

Ike stops short when he notices Nathan, and rubs his eyes for a moment.

"What do you want now? It better be good, Garland Wournos wasn't that damn pleased to find me in the cells, again."

Sarah points to him, and briefly explains why they are there.

"You wanna know about Anna, well, I'll tell ya. Best lady I ever knew, even though me manners and reading. Then she had go and skip town, and never told me where she was going or if she was comin' back."

He glares at Sarah.

"Instead, I got you in return, and you think I'm a waste of space anyway, so it's a sucky trade, if you ask me."

Sarah rolls her eyes, and is suddenly interested in the pictures on the wall.

"Our Anna, she had the right idea, never missed church. Lived in sin and she knew it, but my old man would have married her if he weren't so stubborn and she wasn't so…"

He doesn't finish the sentence, instead looking at Nathan again.

"You look like him, you know."

Obviously not understanding, Dave shoves him down into a chair, almost pinning him to it.

"If she wasn't so what, Ike?"

Ike laughs, it's hoarse and Nathan can smell stale alcohol as he exhales and thinks of the right word to use.

"If she weren't so empowered. Always had to have the last word, even if she was wrong. My dad always hated it when she did that. He didn't know how sneaky she could be, helping people she wasn't supposed to be helping. He was always saying that Troubled people will help themselves, life was better that way."

Nathan then realises that Sarah hasn't said anything for a while.

She lunges forward and before he can stop her, her tiny fist lands on Ike's teeth. He grabs her around her waist, dragging her into another room. He can hear Dave telling Ike to keep his mouth shut, that it's all his fault in the first place.

„_Who the hell are you?"_

The question stuns him, and she's angry, practically seething for a reply.

„_You can't be Thaddeus, can you?"_

She reaches for something behind her, a picture frame she took off the wall. It's of him and Duke and Audrey, and somehow it isn't. The photograph is old, very old. Under the cracked sepia, he recognises her eyes and her blonde hair. He sees himself, wearing a suit and tie and a hat. He stares at the frame, as though the people in it will magically make him understand.

He opens the frame, and carefully examines the picture closer. On the back, there's something written in almost faded script.

"_Tutela of Complector Cuspis , iunctus molestus mos cado__**"**_

_Thaddeus Hansen, Lucy Rasmussen, Ezra Crocker._

_May 5th, 1851_

He's staring at the words, at the faces and back again.

The glass picture frame in his other hand shatters when the gunshot pierces the silence.


	6. Stay

He rushes into the living room, sees Sarah standing there holding the small silver gun. There is a cloud of dust falling from the ceiling, and she and Dave and Ike are at standing in a sort of odd war stance. There's something very odd about the scene, and Nathan can not immediately tell what. He just knows that this is wrong, that these are the wrong people. He stares at the gun, at Dave, and the hole in the ceiling.

"_Y'all are wrong, you know."_

Ike, who is now bound at the wrists, shuffles in his seat, fighting the restraints.

Dave leers at him, and through the dust, he can see a shadow appearing in the doorway. They'd forgotten Simon was even in the house, let alone eavesdropping on them. He looks frightened, and goes pale when he sees the gun.

Sarah is still holding it, weighing it as though it's the most common thing in the world. There's a shuffle, and before he can blink, Simon has tackled her to the floor and is wrestling it from her hand. Another shot goes off, ricocheting of a glass table and into Ike's arm. He screams in pain, and blood is gushing from his upper arm.

Scrambling to their feet, Dave orders them to take Simon outside, and from his tone, he knows that he will not tolerate any spoken answer. But the boy is agile and tries to run away. He tries to take the gun from Sarah, but then he notices the look in her eyes.

"_You're not the one."_

As he gets closer, he realises that he can only really see the white of her eyes, that right now, there's someone else standing here. Ike, still bound, regards her with a look that says that he's afraid, and that he knows he'll never live to see the end of the storm outside.

"_It is my task, I will not fail. Love will conquer all."_

He sees her finger slowly push down on the trigger, as in slow motion, and in a desperate attempt, he hears himself shout „Lucy, no."

Sarah stands still, and he can't hear anything but the wind howling and a click as the trigger is released. She stares at the gun in her hand, and at him and at Ike bleeding in the chair. Dave is the first one to come to his senses, and is able to remove the gun and move Sarah backwards. The tears are streaming down her face, unable to process what just happened.

He watches as Dave pulls her close and rocks her back and forth, trying hard to not feel jealous or start crying himself. The air in the room slowly returns, and Sarah is still softly sobbing. Ike, who has since been released regards the scene with a mix of disgust and undeniable glee.

Without another word, Dave takes her hand and gestures at him that they should leave. When Nathan and Sarah are standing outside on the porch, another gunshot rings out, and through the window, they see a body falling to the floor.

They run inside, and find Ike lifeless on the floor and Dave standing over him, Ike then slowly moves his hand in a faint attempt to grasp a glass shard lying nearby. Nathan reacts first, kicking it away. In the confusion, he hasn't noticed that Dave has aimed the gun again, this time in Sarah's direction.

„_You know this has to happen."_

Sarah nods, looking wistfully out the window. She takes the gun from him, and as if under a trance, releases one last mercy shot. Ike keens and then lets out his final breath. Nathan, still in shock from everything that just happened, knows that the safest option is to take the gun, but his body won't listen to what his brain commands.

He can hear Dave asking if he wants to take Simon outside, while he finishes up.

He grabs the kid by his wrist and it's only when they're about to step out onto the porch, that he hears a scream and he knows that Sarah isn't coming home with them.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mercy Hospital is dark and smells of death. Nathan has been here so many times, as long as he can remember. He knows these yellow walls and the plastic chairs outside the hospital rooms like the back of his hand. He sat here at age five, with the Chief smoking one cigarette after the other. Back then, the door that concealed his dying mother and all the grief that was yet to come was green. Right now, the door that conceals Sarah's battered body is a strange sort of orange.

Vince paces up and down the hallway, occasionally stopping to study a poster on the wall. Dave sits next to him, not speaking and not audibly breathing.

The ginger haired doctor introduces himself as James Carr, and there's an awkward silence when he asks which one of them is Sarah's husband. Vince stops pacing and follows the doctor behind the orange door. After a few minutes, Nathan hears a strange strangled sound. When the doctor exits, they find Vince sitting at her bedside, his fingers laced with hers.

She's so pale in the dim light, her chest slowly rising and falling. She briefly opens her eyes, and whispers something that Nathan can't make out.

"_Baby"_

Dave reacts first, gripping the rung of the footboard, as though to steady himself.

"_Baby ok?"_

No one answers her right away, and the words hang between them.

They are interrupted by two nurses entering, wheeling the bed away. Vince is still too shell shocked to look up, but Dave immediately goes with her. He gets into an argument with one of them, and whatever it is that she tells him, it's not good news.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_How long has it been going on?"_

Sarah has been in surgery for an hour now, and he and Dave have re located to the cafeteria. Their only company is a dinnerlady behind the counter, not the least bit interested in her midnight guests. Dave toys with his coffee cups and tries to come up with the right words to say.

"Vince is…idealistic. Wants to save the world. Or if not, write about saving the world. He tends to get caught up in it, and he forgets about the world around him. Forgets about her."

And then it just flows out of him. About that balmy night last August, when he and Sarah got into an argument over something trivial. He'd grabbed her wrist and she'd kissed him and for the first time in his life, he actually felt like he belonged somewhere.

"_Is it your child?"_

Dave nods, the ghost of her words from earlier still hanging around in his head.

"_I didn't know, I just…"_

Just then, Vince shuffles in, telling them that the surgery went well. His voice cracks on that last word. There's something in Nathan that wants to put his arm around Vince, but it's just not a good idea right now. The three of them walk the hallway back to the hospital room, waiting until Sarah is returned there.

She still looks tiny in the big hospital bed, her hand over her abdomen. Her breathing is more even, he can tell, but her face is pale and the dark circles around her eyes have gotten even bigger. Vince sits by her bedside and holds her hand, making it clear that neither of them are wanted there right now.

It's breaking Dave's heart to leave her behind, but Nathan steers him back towards the plastic chairs. And then it's time for Nathan to ask questions. He has hundreds of them in his head, and with every one he asks, another one forms. He tells Dave about Audrey, about her disappearance and hears himself saying something that the uncertainty is slowly killing him. But the truth is, Audrey is right there behind the door, in that hospital bed, with Vince holding her hand. Only she doesn't know.

She'll never know.

Xxxx

Vince only leaves the hospital room because Dave makes him. After they've gone, Nathan sneaks in, grasping her hand. It's cool to the touch, her fingers bony and her nails practically short. He wants to run his fingers over her bare arms, wants to feel more. But he doesn't.

She moans and her eyelids flutter, and for a second he can see the familiar blue.

"_Your…Aud…Audrey."_

He leans forwards, she's speaking so softly he can barely make out the sound of her voice.

"_She says...that…you need to go find Luce..Lucy."_

He shakes his head, not quite grasping what she's trying to tell him.

"_They'll come, soon. It's too late for me." _

Before she loses consciousness again, she gasps out a few last breathy words.

"_Tell Lucy that it wasn't…wasn't our fault. It's the sins of our fathers, it wasn't our fault."_

The room goes quiet again, and after a while, he rests his hand on top of hers, lays his head down and succumbs to slumber. He's awoken when another nurse comes in to take a temperature, but there's something off about her. Perhaps it's the rough way with which she charts the result, or the way her uniform doesn't really seem to fit.

He decides to follow her, past the nurses station and towards the exit doors. He follows her down a few flights of stairs, ending up in the hospital parking lot. She talks to a man whose face he can't discern. But he knows that voice. It's a little less frightening when it's not echoed against a church wall, but there's something lifeless and chilling about Old Reverend Driscolls voice that he'd recognise everywhere.

Then it clicks that there's no one to watch over Sarah.

He runs as fast as his legs are able to carry him, but only finds an empty bed when he reaches her room. The sight of the empty bed and a small trail of blood on the floor make the world spin out of control. His legs go out from underneath him, and the last thing he sees before the darkness comes is Sarah's ring on the nightstand.


	7. Spook

The next time he opens his eyes, he's bound to a chair in what looks to be a concrete room. Everything is still blurry, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks he hears her calling.

The haze slowly vanishes, and the contours of a police interrogation room slowly appear before him. There's a table and a chair. And a beat cop staring anxiously ahead of him in the corner. He jumps when the door opens and an elderly man bursts in, followed by another uniform, less anxious and more curious looking.

"_So you say your name is Wournos."_

Nathan manages to nod, and let out a grunt.

The older man, whom he assumes is The Chief sits down across from and lights a cigarette. The smell permeates the room immediately and makes his breath hitch. The uniform (The Chief who is not Chief yet) shuffles his feet and lets out a barely audible cough.

„_You ain't Ivy's boy, are ya?"_

Thinking that perhaps being the bastard son from an illicit romance his much scorned aunt had before she was safely married is probably a better explanation then time travel or whatever he was experiencing here. The memory also brings back the memory of who the man in front of him is. Calvin Wournos may have died when he was Nathan was still young enough to be afraid of him, but the Chief had revered him and mentioned him often.

"_What'd you want with the Ivers girl?"_

What did he want with her? They honestly weren't considering this possibility, were they? He croaks out a story about a nurse and being lured away from the hospital room, but they look at him in disbelief. His grandfather was a religious man, so of course he ran with the Rev. If they didn't have him cuffed to the table, he'd smack himself for forgetting that. He leans back, considering his options. When he lets the chair fall back on all four legs, and he shows his uncle just how good of a poker face he has.

"_I knew her, from before. __She worked for me, made my problems go away. Then one day she took off with a guy she met at an AA meeting. __Said he was a reporter. Sarah has a thing for mysterious types."_

" _Took me months to track her down. Girl like that belongs in the big city, not in Bumfuck, Maine." _

The Chief, obviously appalled by the language turns an interesting shade of red and storms out of the room, leaving hurried instructions to his nephew to take him back to his cell. He can hear a small cracking sound behind him.

"_Her name ain't fucking Ivers either, you hear me."_

When the Chief turns around, he doesn't appear to be just angry, he appears to be terrified.

The Teagues don't come for him this time.

He can tell the night turning to day from his cell, and occasional footsteps on the other side of the door.

"_You're an idiot."_

She stands in the corner of his cell. Exactly like she appears in the Colorado Kid photograph. Jeans and turtleneck and brown hair put up in a ponytail. He sits up, stares at her.

„_She told me to tell you that."_

Then she's gone and he's left alone with the sound of slamming doors and drunken slurs.

He doesn't know how long he's been locked up, but he spends so much time staring at the empty spot in the corner where he saw her, that they must think he's gone mad. Nathan also hadn't heard Garland entering and coughing to draw his attention.

„_You know he's in there, calling them because she got taken and he weren't informed of it."_

Them. The elusive them. The ones that took her away from him, from Vince and Dave, from God knows how many more before them.

"_You spook him, looking so much like Thaddeus Hansen." _

The man in the photograph, Thaddeus, Lucy and Ezra. The surreality of it all makes him want to weep and laugh at the same time. It's like a neverending game of two steps forward, three steps back. His whole life may as well be.

"_Come on."_

Garland beckons him to get up, pretends to put the cuffs around his wrists. He leads him down the hall, past a closed office door where an angry voice is having a heated one way discussion. Outside, a patrol car awaits them and Garland defiantly dangles the keys in front of him.

Nathan decides that perhaps obeying is better then struggling and wondering, so he gets in the backseat while Garland fumbles to get the car started. The drive is long and Nathan fails to recognise anything, but when they reach the outskirts of town, he can see that they're heading back towards Snow Ridge.

The house looks even creepier in the dark. There are no streetlights for a few hundred miles, just gravel road and the wind howling. The cuffs are opened, and for some reason, Nathan wants to rub his wrists to ease phantom pain.

The inside of the house looks nothing like it did this afternoon. There are white sheets draped over the main furniture, with the exception of the piano in the corner. Nathan felt a strange urge to walk towards it, but Garland had already grabbed his collar and dragged him towards the stairs.

The second floor was the polar opposite, with the cracked wallpaper and the musty scent hanging everywhere.

"_We should fire the maid. Can we? I've never fired anyone before."_

He doesn't see her, but he can immediately feel her presence. Strong, defiant.

Garland senses his sudden change in demeanour, and shouts at the same unseen presence to knock it off. He only gets a response in the form of a disembodied giggle and a gust of wind sweeping by them.

"_You can't stop me, Garland Wournos. __Not you and not your silly police uniform."_

He rolls his eyes and mutters something about being all talk and no show. This appears to upset the voice, and Nathan can tell she's closing in on them. His breath catches in his throat when he sees something moving in the corner of his eye.

She appears in one of the doorways, wearing a white gown and with long blonde ringlets falling down her back. She's clutching what looks like a bundle of dried flowers, tied together with a ribbon.

"_Thaddeus?" _


End file.
